Culture Shock - Part I

The Catholic Church is part of this world and is filled with fallible, frail and weak human beings. It is affected by everything that takes place on this Earth, and though the Holy Spirit guides it, the human element of the Church occasionally muddies things considerably.

Yeah, I know, it’s not much of a secret is it? But still, I’m always amazed by the fact that people think the Catholic Church should somehow be perfect in its execution of...well...everything.

We would all be fools to think that Catholicism is free of issues, and we would be equal fools to gloss over the existing problems. Stop and think of it this way: The forces that have been at work in the culture of the West (and the ECUSA in particular) for the past 40 years have been at work in the Catholic Church as well. Where one has a Spong, the other has a McBrien. Where one has a Griswold, the other has a Gumbleton. There are plenty of Catholic parishes around the country that have loopy liturgies, priests as dedicated to reform as any progressive Episcopal priest ever has been, and there’s a great wealth of “inclusive‿ language. The 1960’s and 1970’s produced some of the same breed of thinkers within Catholicism as exist outside it. How could it be otherwise?

However, there are some serious differences between the two Churches that cannot be overlooked. The primary difference is that in the ECUSA the progressives have won. Catholicism is still holding out and with encouraging signs for the future.

Examples:

After many years of trying to reach agreement, the liturgy is finally being retranslated. The new version, by all accounts I’ve read, will be much closer to the Latin than the current version. The liturgical translation that exists today was done hastily, with the "Spirit of Vatican II" in mind, and it was translated in a rather sloppy way with a serious lean to the Left. For example, “credo" in Latin became “we believe". The problem is, Credo really means “I believe", and is intended as the beginning of a personal profession of faith. For many years, this personal profession became a group thing, and in doing this, weakened the profession itself by watering it down. Very soon this will be changing. The person on MCJ that said, in a comment box, that Liturgicam Authenticam existed only in the hearts and minds of a few antiquarians could not be further from reality. The reality is that the new translation is taking Liturgicam Authenticam seriously, and is being driven by Rome, no longer by progressive American bishops. Lastly, on this point, is the fact that the new translation was approved by the American bishops against the wishes of the progressives on the committee overseeing the translation. In short, where the progressives in the ECUSA won at GENCON this year, the orthodox won in the translation wars within Catholicism – for the first time since Vatican II!

Another good sign in taking place in the “sad bench of bishops". Many of the newer bishops, the likes of Burke and Chaput, preach the faith the way it’s supposed to be. As the older bishops retire – often progressives who were ordained in the 60’s and 70’s – Rome is often replacing them with priests that are far more orthodox. Once the voice of Catholicism in America resided in the archbishoprics of Chicago and New York (not known for being havens of conservative thought). Now that voice has, in broad terms at least, moved west to Denver or St. Louis, where orthodox Catholicism is preached – and listened to by the faithful.

Look at the culture of Catholicism as well. Imagine yourself back in 1980. Ted Kennedy decided to mount a bid to unseat Jimmy Carter as the democratic candidate for president. I remember that election very clearly. I do not recall any discussion of Kennedy’s Catholicism on the same level that we saw with John Kerry in 2004. No one ever talked of denying communion to Kennedy, while an active cannon law effort was made to actually excommunicate John Kerry. A national debate followed. Such a debate within Catholicism would never have been contemplated in the 1970’s or 80’s.

Not all is perfect on this side of the Tiber, but things are far from lost. There is still a stout vein of orthodoxy within Catholicism, and it is only just now beginning to express itself.